In many industrial areas including pharmaceuticals, electronics, chemicals, and others, a significant amount of experimentation, manufacturing, production, and the like must be performed in sterile, contaminant-free, germ-free, and/or particle-free work spaces, often referred to as clean rooms. Additionally, special work spaces are necessary in order to isolate potentially harmful environments due to the presence of dangerous chemicals and/or biological matter. However, the cost to build, maintain, and operate such work spaces is significant. For example, special air filtering equipment must be provided for the work space, persons entering and leaving the work space must be specially attired and must observe strict transmitting rules, and materials must be exchanged into and out of the work space without allowing contaminants to be exchanged. As may be understood, the cost of providing such a work space is considerable and is ultimately passed on from the industry to customers and consumers.
As may be recognized, the biggest source of contamination in connection with a work space is caused by people entering and leaving the work space. Accordingly, one way the aforementioned industries are attempting to reduce costs is to remove the people from the work space. Thus, in the handling, manipulating and formulating of hazardous, toxic or other materials in a clean environment, it is known to employ sealed enclosures, locally controlled environments, isolation systems, and the like to allow at least one operator to work on materials in the interior of the enclosure without physically exposing the operator and the interior to one another.
In order to allow an operator to perform tasks in the interior of the sealed enclosure, the operator may reach in through one or more glove ports positioned on the enclosure. In relatively large sealed enclosures, the operator may employ a protective upper torso suit. Such a facility for providing a sealed work area is described more thoroughly in U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,957, hereby incorporated by reference.
While such facilities, locally controlled environments, sealed enclosures, isolation systems, and the like have been known for some time, the cleaning and sterilization of materials in the interior of the sealed enclosure has been problematic. In a typical clean room, an autoclave or the like is normally provided as an instrument for cleaning and sterilizing materials within the clean room. Accordingly, a properly garbed operator in the clean room would clean and sterilize a part or instrument by inserting the part or instrument into the autoclave and then operating the autoclave. Thereafter, the cleaned and sterilized part or instrument would be removed from the autoclave and used in the clean room.
Typically, an autoclave is a relatively large, heavy instrument and can occupy up to about 150 cubic feet of space. Also, and as is well known, an autoclave employs high pressure steam to clean and sterilize instruments. Accordingly, the autoclave is preferably positioned in a cavity within a masonry wall such that the autoclave is properly supported and such that damage from a sudden release of pressure is minimized.
Referring now to a facility such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,957, it should be apparent that the use of an autoclave in connection with the facility such that the autoclave is accessible from the interior of the facility presents several problems. Although the autoclave could be placed in the interior of the facility, the space occupied by the autoclave and the weight of the autoclave would be excessive. Further, the facility would not typically provide the same shielding as if the autoclave were placed within a masonry wall. As will also be recognized, the maintenance, cleaning and repair of the autoclave is complicated when the autoclave is located in the interior of the facility. Therefore, a need has arisen for a means and a method for coupling an isolation system for handling, manipulating and formulating materials and an autoclave positioned exterior to the isolation system, while maintaining the controlled environment within the isolation system.